Floating Leaves was nominated and confirmed for our TeaVendor Guide under the Oolong Tea category. If you would like to nominate them to other categories, you may do this, otherwise limit discussion to their Oolong Tea offerings. Thank you!

NEW! Official Oolong Tea Vendor Guide for Floating Leaves.com Consider this a perennial topic for Oolong teas from Floating Leaves to discuss and review.

I can't believe I'm the first person to get this section going! After all the talk it gets on here! I only learned about it through this forum.

I am obsessed with FLT's special roast dong ding. I prefer it to both FLT's greener and traditional dong dings. It has a gorgeous full-mouth honey aftertaste. It just tastes "deep." I'm not sure how else to describe it. All I know is that I want to swim in a tub full of these leaves.

I am also a huge fan of her muzha TGY. It think she describes it very accurately as having a delicious dark chocolate fragrance.

The other oolongs of hers that I've tried are also excellent: alishan, lishan, lalashan, the second place baozhong (which seems to have gotten some attention on this forum). The only tea I've been somewhat disappointed with was her Oriental Beauty. I don't know. I've had a wide variety of bai hao oolongs (my gateway tea?) and this landed somewhere in the inoffensive, good middle ground. It just didn't "rock my world."

Just restocked on these two favorites, so I thought I'd give FLT a shout-out. Plus this week there's a 15% off discount on the oolongs (also, there are a bunch of other sales on the site) this week! Happy Chinese New Year!

Has anyone tried any of the Winter 2009 teas? I'd like to order a Baozhong and the Alishan, but I've already spent too much from other vendors and have to wait awhile before buying any more tea. I hope the Alishan doesn't sell out - out sounds so good.

I've tried both the Winter 2009 Farmer's Choice and 2nd place baozhongs and they are phenomenal. This is coming from someone who is usually "meh" about baozhong.

I've only tried their traditional Dong Ding, which I love, but everyone raves about the special roast. I'm usually more of a fan of unroasted Dong Ding, but the FLT traditional turned me around, so I want to try the special roast now for sure.

Floating Leaves is great. Beyond the simple fact that their teas are amazing, the owner Shiuwen is very knowledgeable and the customer service is top notch. Great communication via email about your order and she always provides a handwritten thank you note and free samples. Cannot recommend Floating Leaves enough.

rhondabee wrote:Has anyone tried any of the Winter 2009 teas? I'd like to order a Baozhong and the Alishan

I had a chance to stop by during mid jan to try the 3 baozhongs before she sold out of two of them. Out of the three I enjoyed the honorable mention the most. Good stuff I think about it sometimes, wish I had bought more then one bag of it. Her winter buddha hand is very interesting, like an exploration.

I have not had a single tea that I did not enjoy from her collection, including her oriental beauty. Her tea is of good quality.

Special Roast Dong Ding:This is a beautiful tea in appearance, aroma, flavor and feel. The leaves were whole and uncurled beautifully and gradually during each infusion. I wanted to keep the leaves just to look at as they were nearly perfect in appearance. The liquor is a beautiful amber, almost glowing. I experienced undertones of bergamont wrapped in a fruity broth; very bright. No astringency. I did not experience it to be a deep flavor, although I've only had one full gongfu session with the leaves and followed the parameters given by the vendor explicitly. I may mix it up a bit next time. The first infusion was sweet, the second less so. But the brightness of the aroma and fruitiness of the tea lingered into the 5th infusion. I admit taking it to 7 infusions. I am pleased with this tea, although I prefer Oolong with a deeper,darker perfume. If I'm looking for a summer tea that isn't green, this will be it. I would serve this to special guests without hesitation.

tgy is very enjoyable jinxuan and 4seasons are drastically different from last year 2010 jinxuan is better(though less floral vs 2009) and 4 seasons is worse imo. (4 seasons 2009 is also machine harvested vs the 2009 I ordered in november last yr, which was handpicked).

brewed ob once no thoughts yet except that it was goodStill a satisfied customer

nevermind, changed my opinion on the 4 seasons being worse then before, its just different, good packed heavier and left to cool to just warm

How different her teas our from season to season. I see this more as good then bad, though inconsistent, you get to understand the multiple possibilities that a certain tea can offer. It keeps things new and interesting as long as the person picking the tea has some good experience.

Drank the 2010 winter dayuling yesterday. As usual, I like Shiuwen's greener oolongs better than most. Even brewed fairly aggressively, the tea has some nice fruity overtones and isn't overly vegetal, and if you push the brews a little longer than you might otherwise, there's a pleasant lingering tropical fruit aftertaste.

tortoise wrote:She doesn't put them on her site, but has anyone purchased a yixing pot from Floating Leaves? Just curious about the tiers of pots they carry.

I like the two pots I have from there a lot, but I had the chance to use both of them for a bit prior to purchase. (Had to beg for 2 years to get one of them, a shu pu pot that does amazing things...) I think in general she has good quality pots, but they are not her specialty IMO.